Faizel Patel, Radio Islam News – 2013-08-26

Members of a 1000-strong Buddhist mobs in Burma have gone on the rampage in a new wave of anti-Muslim violence. The mob attacked and torched Muslim homes and shops in the Asian country, spreading fears of repeated sectarian violence.

The Information Ministry said the latest round of violence was triggered by a report that a Muslim man attempted to sexually assault a Buddhist woman in a village at Kanbalu in the central region of Sagaing.

A regional police official, who asked to remain anonymous, told Agence France Presse (AFP) on Sunday “About 150 people gathered at the police station last night (Sunday), calling for them to hand over the detainee.”

“When police did not respond, they started setting fire to nearby shops,” the official added.

State television reported that about 42 houses and 15 shops were burned and destroyed, most belonging to Muslims.

The predominantly Buddhist nation of 60 million has been grappling with sectarian violence since the country's military rulers handed over power to a nominally civilian government in 2011.

The unrest which has killed more than 250 people and left 140,000 others displaced began last year in the western state of Rakhine, where nationalist Buddhists accuse the Rohingya Muslim community of illegally entering the country and encroaching on their land.

The violence, on a smaller scale but still deadly, spread earlier this year to other parts of the country, fueling deep-seeded prejudices against the Islamic minority and threatening Myanmar's fragile transition to democracy.

Almost all of the victims have been Muslims, often attacked as security forces stood by.

Radical Buddhist monk Wirathu blamed Muslim for the unrest in a message on his Facebook page, using term “kalal”; a highly derogatory word, to describe the minority.

“Kalars are troublemakers. When a kalar is there, the problem will be there,” he said.

Calling himself as Buddhist Bin Laden, Wirathu’s anti-Muslim and nationalist speeches have been accused of stoking the unrest.